Barclays ATP World Tour Finals 2011

This win was necessary for Federer and his fans. It gave them some hope going forward – for the New Year. Both of them were grasping at straws. He went about nine month without winning any tournaments, so you can see why they'd both be so desperate. Who cares about Basel anyway? Is it even a tourney? It’s more like Federer Tournament. Nadal, Nole had to fight each other all year long for the big ones and they had to face players like Andy and Federer in the final and semis, so it's quite legit that they didn't have much left in the tank after USO. Can you see a healthy Novak/Nadal/Murray not taking the Paris/WTF tournaments? They were barely there. Andy didn't even play after the first match. So while this tournament was very disappointing overall, you can see why it was so important to Fed and his fans. If he hadn’t won anything other than Basel this year, they would have had nothing to look forward to.

But of course, Federer will try his best and sneak in wins like these next year too and the year after and so on. He won’t mind it as long as he wins titles…any title. He really and truly wants to secure his position as the GOAT and as long as Nadal is around, he will always be under enormous threat. His GOAT status will always be at stake.

Look how close he came anyway – if Andy hadn’t beaten Nadal in both USO and AO, Nadal would have had 12 Slams and Federer 14. And if Soderling hadn’t beaten Nadal at RG which eventually made Nadal withdraw from Wimbledon, he would have had 2 more Slams totally 14 Slams and Federer would have left with 12 Slams. I am not even touching this year but you know how dangerously close Nadal came in winning almost 3 more majors. This already puts him, in theory, ahead of Federer. So Nadal is definitely breathing down his neck and Federer’s GOAT status is already in jeopardy even when he’s very much in the scene. At least Pete got to retire first. If Nole comes flat next year which is always a possibility, you know Nadal will be taking advantage of it. He should - by all means. Even so, if he continues to play well into his 30s, you can’t dismiss that he won’t win a few more regardless and break Federer’s record eventually. It’s all within the realm of possibilities.

I find counting titles a bit misleading and I don't believe anyone can say who is the GOAT. There are too many variables to be taken into account. But while weare counting we will have to acknowledge that after winning slams a tennis player's big ambition is to win all four in the one season. The Fed will never reach thatnow.